ine
city of Launceston. It was a discovery of first-class importance. Apart
from the pleasure which they derived from having made it, the two friends
were charmed with the beauty of their surroundings. They derived the most
favourable impression of the quality of the land and its suitableness for
settlement. They worked up the river for several miles, but time did not
permit them to follow it as far as it was navigable. Thus they did not
reach the site of the present city, and left the superb gorge and
cataract to be discovered by Collins when he entered the Tamar again in
1804. The harbour was subsequently named Port Dalrymple by Hunter, after
Alexander Dalrymple, the naval hydrographer.

The extent of the survey, with delays caused by adverse weather, kept the
Norfolk in the Tamar estuary for a full month. On December 3rd her
westward course was resumed. From this time forth Bass and Flinders were
in constant expectancy of passing through the strait into the open ocean.
The northern trend of the coast for a time aroused apprehensions that
there was no strait after all, and that the northern shore of Van
Diemen's Land might be connected with the coast beyond Westernport. The
water was also discoloured, and this led Flinders to think that they
might be approaching the head of a bay or gulf. But on December 7th the
vigilant commander made an observation of the set of the tide, from which
he drew an "interesting deduction." "The tide had been running from the
eastward all the afternoon," wrote Flinders, "and, contrary to
expectation, we found it to be near low water by the shore; the flood
therefore came from the west, and not from the eastward, as at Furneaux'
Isles. This we considered to be a strong proof, not only of the real
existence of a passage betwixt this land and New South Wales, but also
that the entrance into the southern Indian Ocean could not be far
distant."

On the following day the deduction was confirmed. After the Norfolk had
rounded a headland, a long swell was observed to come from the
south-west, breaking heavily upon a reef a mile and a half away. This was
a new phenomenon; and both Bass and Flinders "hailed it with joy and
mutual congratulation, as announcing the completion of our
long-wished-for discovery of a passage into the southern Indian Ocean."
They were now through the strait. What Bass months before had believed to
be the case was at length demonstrated to a certainty. "The direction of